Smells Like Sin
by gaybaconprincess
Summary: A Jericho centric fic about Jericho's first few weeks moving in with Titans North, and his dawning realization that he is a little less than used to cities or people in general. He travels into the city alone at night, determined to get over his fears, and ends up making friends in some weird places.
1. Fear

[I do not own Teen Titans. Hey guys! I know I've been gone a while, sorry. So, I've been talking headcanons with letsjustnaptogether, and this shitstorm popped out. I hope you like it. It's...kinda everywhere.]

Jericho didn't know exactly what to expect upon moving into the city. He hadn't had contact with real people in an incredibly long time. Maybe he expected someone to just walk into his life and make it better, maybe he'd enter the city and he'd fall flat on his face from the surprise. Either way, he definitely didn't expect to feel so cripplingly sick to the stomach from _just_ his window view of the city.

Herald had tried to help, so had Raven. Neither succeeded. For the past week and a half that he'd been apart of Titans North, he'd tried so very hard to adapt to his new surroundings. He'd focused on decorating his room, he'd focused on painting familiar landscapes in his head, he'd focused on everything he could to clear his mind of the fact that he was stuck right in the middle of a huge, terrifying place that he knew nothing about in the least.

Jericho closed his eyes in determination one more time before he yet again pulled back his curtains and trembled at the city before him.

Growing up, Jericho's mother and father had kept him far away from the city because of their unique lifestyle and formidable enemies. After the incident, Jericho was driven even further from civilization. And now?

Now he was gaping shallowly, his fingers trembling pathetically with the edge of his dark purple curtain in hand. Jericho was a thinker, whenever he was faced with something impossible, he broke it down into smaller parts and picked away at his own opinions of it until he understood it fully. But this was different. This city wasn't even as big as Jump City was, and Jericho felt like he were going to keel over anyway. He tried to flick his eyes this way and that, focusing on one thing at a time of the view.

Jericho looked down at the seashore that spread in between Titans Tower and the city itself first, coming to the dawning realization that he'd never been this high above the ground before. He'd always been able to take off his shoes and remind himself that no matter what, he was still there. He was still on the ground and connected to everything around him, he wasn't walled off and pushed away by steel buildings and technology that he couldn't work. Even the inside of his room in the tower felt cold and desolate, like an icy prison or a hospital room. He felt too far away from the earth, from nature, from _himself_ to even sleep well in the room.

Jericho shook his head and forced his eyes somewhere else, now on the sea itself. It disgusted him, to say the least. Jericho wasn't an easily disgusted person, but if living in the city taught him anything so far, it was that humanity was capable of truly moronic actions. Since Titans North had stationed, the people had been turning to their appointed leader, The Herald, for things the mayor of the town should've been able to handle, but wasn't handling. One of these was how terrible the sea was. Jericho frowned mournfully, sure that once upon a time, the sea was a dazzling blue, with fish of all colors running through its ebb as children playfully splashed on the shore. Now it was dark and murky, filled with trash and pollution. It was disgusting.

And then...then Jericho looked out onto the city. It all came buzzing to him in a blur, speeding up his heartrate and making him feel weak and small. In the mountains, he was strong. He barely ever met with a person, so he was the biggest organism in his home compared to the rabbits and the birds he'd watch during the day. Here he was small. He didn't matter, he was forgettable and irrelevant. The city was huge, filled with huge monsters and people and god like superheroes. He felt like the weight of the city was going to come crushing down on him. Even so, he'd agreed that now it was his job to make the city right again, to make the people happier and safer in their homes.

Joseph was terrified, terrified of everything set before him.

Jericho yanked the curtains shut again, hissing in a scared breath, feeling like his thoughts were going to suck him in.

Jericho opened his eyes, and he nearly cried at the backpack he had set on his bed.

Jericho was a thinker. He thought a lot, something you got used to when you couldn't _talk_ a lot. He never did anything in his life just on a whim - 'gut feelings' were false, 'love' was a chemical reaction in the body, and being rash was just being foolish at this stage in life. Jericho held onto these beliefs tight his entire life away from his family, maybe he was right, maybe he just hadn't experienced enough yet.

Jericho thought long and hard about this decision.

For a week and a half Mal and Raven had been trying to help Jericho cope with the fact that he hadn't left the tower even once. They told him it was 'okay', they told him 'better luck next time', they told him 'it's a rational fear'. But it wasn't - Jericho knew that, so did Raven.

Jericho had never in his life let fear hold him back, and he wasn't going to start that day. Despite everything, despite their difference in ego, despite their difference in moral standard, despite their strengths and weaknesses, Joseph was his father's son. Not Joseph nor Slade would ever in their lives admit how similar they each were, but they could agree that letting fear hold you back from doing anything was a foolish, insane thing to do.

Jericho didn't need to be treated differently - he'd dealt with that enough, considering the other Titans seemed to think that since he was mute he didn't qualify as being as capable as the other Titans, he really did hope they all got over that concept quickly. Jericho didn't need someone to hold his hand and walk him through it. That's why Jericho took in a deep breath, clenched his fists and his teeth, and he slung the backpack over his shoulder before heading out the door, and inevitably into the impending city that had struck fear into his heart for so long.

[This is the longest document I've ever written in one sitting. It's all fifteen pages that I'm separating into chapters. Wow. Read and review please!]


	2. Ray

[I do not own Teen Titans. Next chapter! Hope you like it!]

Jericho went over his plan in his head again as he walked through the city street and looked down at his feet. He'd packed enough money in the backpack so that he could stay in a hotel of some sort overnight in the city, and he'd also packed his communicator and a pocketknife - just in case. Jericho smiled to himself, happy with his conclusion, knowing that everything was going to be fine, there was nothing to worry about, no need to panic. Jericho looked up and-

-...Jericho realized that he had absolutely no idea where he was.

Jericho groaned to himself as he stopped walking on the sidewalk and glared up at the red sky, the sunset creating a beautiful painting. It was calming. It brought familiarity. No matter where he was, Jericho always knew what the sunset looked like, it helped him get through his frustration.

Suddenly, Jericho was roughly shoved into the outside wall of a generic clothing store by some gruff looking shadow already morphing back into the crowd, too much in a hurry to get home to be caught behind a daydreaming little boy.

Jericho's eyes were blown wide as he was suddenly tossed and shoved and hit in every direction by a steady flow of people trying to get home before dark. He didn't understand. From what he could remember, people were usually at least nice enough to recognize that another human being was in front of them, or apologize for the inconvenience. Jericho was so scared, he didn't know what to do with all these people shoving at him. He tripped as he attempted to move out of people's way, and if he had a voice he knew he'd be yelling in either surprise or anger.

Suddenly, Jericho managed to spot the opening to an alleyway, clumsily tripping himself down it to get away from the claustrophobia and the heavy breaths down his neck.

Jericho felt one or two tears slip down his cheek as he tried to catch his breath, finally leaning against the dirty wall of the hidden alcove and sliding down it.

What had he been thinking? He could hear The Herald's voice now as he attempted to dig out his communicator. 'You should've listened to us,' Mal would say, 'You're not ready yet'. Jericho clenched his teeth angrily, ruffling his hands into his hair in frustration. Why couldn't these people see that he just wanted to help?

Suddenly, the hot anger running through him was dabbed away, along with some blood on the side of his face.

Jericho jumped and looked up at an unfamiliar face with lit, dangerous eyes, ready to fight if the man attacked him. He couldn't even see the man's full face in the darkness, but the man didn't flinch a bit. Instead, he just continued dabbing at a cut Jericho had gotten when he'd hit the ground outside the first time.

"You're not from around here, are you?" The strange voice chuckled. Jericho sighed in response, curling in on himself.

The strange man sat beside Jericho.

"...I get it. It's scary, it's cruel and mean, but most cities are." The shadow man said off-handedly, staring boredly at the river that ran in the basement like alleyway - perhaps it was a sewer, Jericho wouldn't be surprised.

Jericho tugged on the man's arm before writing one word into the flesh with his finger so that the man might understand.

'Why?' he wrote sadly.

The man sighed, shaking his head. Jericho realized then that he _could_ see some of the man, he could only see his eyes. The stranger had electric blue eyes, almost ethereal, and his pupils were a striking crimson.

"That's the big question, isn't it? Why are we like this? Why do we seem so content with ruining each other's lives?" The man said rhetorically.

"Wish I could tell you lil' bit," the man said sadly, "but I don't have a clue. If I did, I'd be trying to help fix the world with all those spandex superheroes." The man said.

'Little bit?' Jericho questioned, not used to nicknames, or names at all.

"Well I mean, how old are you, thirteen? What are you doing in this city alone?" The man asked. Jericho's eyebrow twitched and his mouth went taut, inwardly snapping about the strike toward his height and ego.

Jericho pointed his finger up toward the ceiling.

"...fifteen?" The man asked in a high pitched voice.

Jericho gesture up again.

"...six...teen…?"

Again, his finger went up.

"There is no way you are seventeen years old." The man commented in finality. Jericho shook his head with a smile as he wrote in two digits to the man's arm.

'18'.

"Eighteen and you've never been into the city, huh? Doesn't surprise me, you look like someone ripped you out of a seventies rolling stone magazine." The man said with a laugh.

Jericho couldn't help but laugh with him.

In a city as big as this one, he'd only found comforting arms in the dirty swallows of an alleyway.

"...You wanna hang out? I can show you around. I don't know why, but I feel like we're friends. I don't want you accidentally running into someone dangerous around here." The man said.

Jericho tilted his head in skepticism for a moment, mulling it over.

"Look, I promise not all of the city is as terrible as this part. Besides," the man said before leaning over to whisper playfully in Jericho's ear.

"You can meet some pretty weird people in the alley."

Jericho laughed again, nodding. Before they left, Jericho wrote his name into the man's arm, smiling up at the kind stranger.

"Jericho, huh? That's a pretty killer name. I'm Raymond, or, well, just Ray." The boy said, leading Jericho up above the alleyway.

When the two finally made it back into seeable light, Jericho realized that it was nightfall. It was much less crowded, and now he could see Raymond in the light of a street lamp.

Raymond wasn't a man at all, he was a boy around Jericho's age. He was strange, to say the least. He had an electric green mohawk that grew down long enough to be put into a braid that slung down his back and to his lower torso. He had light brown skin - Jericho guessed that he either Spanish, Native American, or Indian - and he had a bottom lip piercing. He wore baggy, hand me down clothes and he looked short on cash, something Jericho expected from someone hanging out in an alleyway. He wore a black tank top that hung off of his tall, lanky figure and baggy dark green pants, he was also covered in tattoos despite Jericho's sureness that he was only seventeen or eighteen.

Above all this, Jericho noticed his kind smile. He had the same eyes and smile as he did in the alleyway, already yammering on about how excited he was to have someone to hang out with and show around. His entire face lit up with the force of his smile, and Jericho told himself that even if tonight failed immensely, he had accomplished something by making someone feel so happy in the dark city.

"Oh! Oh, I've got an idea - close your eyes!" Ray said excitedly. Jericho was skeptical for a moment, before yet again sighing and complying. Ray walked Jericho around for a while, before finally the two stopped and Jericho was allowed to open his eyes.

Lights, lights everywhere. They weren't blinding though - they were soft and beautiful.

They were in a large room lined with tables and chairs, and there were soft blue and white christmas lights hanging from the edge of the ceiling. There was also a device set in the middle of the room that splayed beautiful designs of lightning on the ceiling. To top this all off, the room was dark and had the faint aroma of scented candles around it. It reminded Jericho of somewhere Raven would hang out.

"I thought you might be hungry, and this is the greatest place in town. It's never too crowded either, so that's always nice." Ray said as they made their way up to the counter.

The boy dug into his wallet for a moment, looking quite a bit panicked before Jericho slid some money toward the impatient woman at the counter, smiling in a 'don't worry, I've got it' kind of way. Ray sheepishly laughed, blushing and scratching the back of his head for a moment as he thanked Jericho profusely.

'Can I ask you something?' Jericho signed once they sat down across from each other at one of the corner booths in the restaurant.

"Hm? Yeah of course!" Ray said through a mouth full of food, grinning sheepishly again once he realized he was talking with his mouth full. Jericho couldn't help but let a flood of relief and appreciation sway through him when he realized that Ray was the very first person besides Raven he'd met since he left his mountain that knew sign language and didn't treat it like a handicap. Jericho held his hands still for a moment, attempting to decide what exactly he wanted to ask. He had so many questions, but he didn't want to waste any of Raymond's time.

'Why are you so much different than everyone else?' Jericho signed finally.

Ray thought on this for a moment, genuinely not knowing the answer.

"I don't really know...maybe it's just the way I think? I grew up the same as everyone else on the streets, so it can't be that...I guess it's just that my morals are different. It's always harder thinking different than everyone else does, but it's usually worth it." Ray said, looking outside the dark blue window nearest to his seat.

"Call me a hippie," he continued, "but I don't see the point in fighting. I get it, superheroes need to save people's lives, they need to fight to protect, yada yada. But, I mean- we're all people. We're all...connected somehow. I don't understand the point of war and money and power...I guess it's affected my outlook on everything in life. I just...I don't get why people would hurt others for no reason, or any reason at all. Okay, so this guy like another guy, or this girl wasn't born a girl, what's the big deal? What does it matter to you enough for you to get _so_ worked up to actually hurt another human being that has feelings and thoughts and beliefs just like your own? ...I guess that's why I'm different." Ray answered finally. Jericho suddenly realized that Ray had no idea he was talking to a Teen Titan. Jericho decided that he wanted to leave it like that. He liked this, Ray talking to him in a real way, no secret identities or lies or facades for popularity. Ray spoke his mind and he didn't deny or try to hide any of it, completely comfortable around Jericho.

"You gotta real distant look on your face, something wrong?" Ray asked.

"Shit!" he said suddenly, panicking, "I didn't mean- I mean I get if you're a conservative or whatever- look I really like you and like talking to you please don't hate me for-" Ray was suddenly cut off by Jericho giving him a concerned look and a comforting touch to his bare arm, calming him down immensely.

'People hurt others for liking the same sex, or not being the same sex?' Jericho signed with a serious expression.

"...Jesus, man. You really have been out of it, huh? ...Yeah, yeah, after so many years of getting hurt, people still do that. All the time, it sucks." Ray said. Ray looked up at Jericho, and Jericho looked caught between furious, flabbergasted, and repulsed. It was a good sign, Ray was scared he'd run away and call Ray a faggot like everyone else did.

"...So, what's your stance on all this? What's your sexuality and gender?" Ray asked, taking a large leap of faith. Jericho thought for a moment. He'd never really thought about it all that much. He hadn't fallen in love in a very long time, and the thought was foreign to him.

'What is the terminology for when you don't care about the sex of your partner, only for who they are?' Jericho asked. Ray lit up like a christmas tree, it was like watching the sun come out of hiding from behind a calm cloud.

"Pansexual! That's pretty cool! I, myself, am gay, I like other guys." Ray explained.

"Y'know…" Ray said, getting Jericho's attention back on his face. Where once was a buoyant, loud smile, there was now a shy, quieter smile.

"I'm glad I got to meet you Jericho. You're really cool. I don't know your status with me, but I think you're a really good friend. I'm glad I got to meet you." Ray said.

'You're actually my first friend in a long time'. Jericho signed with a smile to match Ray's.

"You're shitting me. Well goldilocks, I believe it's time we left if we wanna make it to Hollow Sound Box before it closes on us." Ray said, getting up and offering Jericho a hand.

'You're really intent on a nickname?' Jericho signed as he ignored Ray's hand and got up himself, leaving it to hang limply in the air.

"Most definitely, Bombshell." Ray commented answered smoothly as they walked out into the crisp, vibrant night air of the still mysterious city.

'Joey'. Jericho signed with a smile.

"Joey." Ray repeated. Jericho smiled wide and happy at the name. It'd been so, so long since someone had called him Joey. It felt nice.

"Well, Joey, I hope you're aware that this is not going to stop me from teasing you anyway." Ray promised.

'I wouldn't have it any other way'. Jericho signed with a sarcastic grin and a roll of his eyes.

[I really like? Jericho having a friendship with someone like Ray? He's not a very developed character, but whatever. Read and Review please!]


	3. The Hollow Sound Box

[I do not own Teen Titans. Take this nerd.]

Ray led Jericho through some strange parts of the city after that, explaining everything he could in good detail and trying his very hardest to make the city sound less terrible than it was. He showed Joey the park, his favorite alleyway shortcuts, and finally, the two made it to a bus stop.

Ray had enough to pay for their tickets this time, and the two sat down in the very back of the bus, waiting and bumping along with the road until they got to wherever this "Hollow Sound Box" place was that Ray kept talking about. Jericho leaned on the window and relaxed, watching as the blurred lights and people of all kinds passed them by.

Jericho suddenly realized that he wasn't afraid, he was in awe. In actuality, the city was beautiful, he'd just needed to learn about the not terrible parts of it. There were people of all kinds - black and white, straight and gay, trans and cis, old and young, rich and poor - and they all lived together in one huge monument to humanity.

People like Ray lived here.

And suddenly Jericho finally found his motivation to actually _want_ to protect this city and it's people.

Ray soon was nudging an earphone at Jericho for them to share. Jericho took the left wire gingerly, looking at it like alien technology before slipping it into his ear.

Jericho was touched at the music playing. Earlier when they were messing around in the park, Jericho had explained his deep and undying passion for music. He'd also explained that it didn't exactly reach out very far. Living on a mountain for so long and away from technology, Jericho had never heard any music other than the songs he played himself. He didn't know what drums sounded like, or a keyboard, or even the length of how well someone could sing. All he knew was his guitar. He was content with it, but now he had an entire new world of music and art and expression and beauty to explore, with no setbacks whatsoever.

Jericho smiled and he leaned over to look at Ray's phone, trying to figure out what was playing. The song Ray had decided to play was almost entirely string instruments, all guitar. The voice that began singing was deep and earthy, natural, no technology in any of it really. It was sweet of Ray to think of Jericho enough to try and find a song familiar to his normal music style.

While Jericho continued attempting to read the name of the band on Ray's phone, he managed to lean his head on Ray in an almost romantic gesture. Ray sucked in a breath for a moment, letting it go and dumbing it down to accidental and platonic, slowing his heart back down.

Ray had to take a moment to remind himself of the world he lived in. Life wasn't a fairytale, and magical, beautiful, perfect blonde boys don't just pop up into your life and immediately fall in love with you and ask you out on a-

Ray suddenly had the revelation that maybe, possibly, perhaps, he may have accidentally taken Joey on a date. Maybe, possibly, _perhaps_ , Joey was enjoying it just as much as Ray was.

Ray smiled in hope.

It didn't take long for Ray to realize that Joey was far too comfortable slumped against him to move away. It also didn't take long for Joey to realize he was far too comfortable to not fall asleep with his hair splayed and his cheek smushed against Ray's shoulder.

Ray sighed and smiled some more. The light of the street lamps buzzing by outside made for a beautiful picture. They danced and twirled and swirled in orange light against Joey's pale skin, and he looked so peaceful when he was asleep.

Suddenly the bus stopped and the two were jerked forward, and Joey simply started walking off the bus as if it were the most normal thing in the world to just fall asleep on your not-so-heterosexual friend who had a not-so-heterosexual crush on you. Maybe it was. It wouldn't surprise Ray. A lot of what Jericho did didn't make a lot of sense.

"Behold, The Hollow Sound Box!" Ray yelled at the top of his lungs, resulting in someone in a building not far from them to shout something crude and explicit at him.

As Jericho walked into the dark building, it finally dawned on him what it was.

It was a music store.

It was beaten and busted down, but electric blue guitars and well kept keyboards line the walls anyway. In the middle of the ceiling, there was a large bowl shaped light bulb that lit up the room in a soft yellow glow, and there were christmas lights that hung down from the ceiling like vines lining every single doorframe and wall. Indie rock music filled the room with a new life, and there were lava lamps and dusty books scattered everywhere. There was also an array of sleeping bags set up in the back of the room.

"Well, I mean, you told me how you were going to spend the night in the city and I thought- you don't have to stay! It's cool if you don't- my friends just helped- I mean-" Ray blubbered, finally coming to a stop at Jericho's thankful smile that Ray had gotten so used to.

"Ray! You're back!" yelled a girl that popped up from behind the counter suddenly.

The girl had wild pink hair and a roller blading costume, and immediately she went to hugging Jericho.

"You're Joey! Ray told me and Mikey a lot about you over the bus ride!" The girl said. Suddenly there were two more boys. One was tall and lanky with dark blue hair, and the other was medium sized with near white hair.

"Joey, these are my friends. This is Mikey and Davis-" Ray said, gesturing over to the weird bunch before him.

"And this is-"

"NISSAN!" All three boys shouted at one time, startling Jericho and making 'Nissan' roll her eyes at their laughter.

"Sorry, ahem, this is Nissa-"

"NEE-SAH!" Nissa interjected for a moment.

"But we call her Nissan to mess with her all the time." Ray explained.

"Which is EXTREMELY RUDE." Nissa said with a glare and a pose with her hands on her hips.

'So I'm not the only person you give horrid nicknames to'. Jericho signed, resulting in the three teens laughing and pointing at Ray in his suspense.

"Yeah, you'll fit in fine with these goons." Ray said with a smile and a roll of his eyes.

The rest of the night - that is, until four in the morning - Jericho had had more fun than he'd ever had in his entire life. He could be himself and do what he wanted around Mikey, Nissa, Davis and Ray. Once he finally confessed to not being happy with his look, Nissa and Davis completely took over. Jericho was a Teen Titans after all, he had to look a certain way for the public. Among his newfound friends however- within the next hour Nissa had taken the liberty of spraying glitter into Joey's hair, doing his eyeliner and his eyeshadow to look like her smoky cat eyes, and she'd let him pick out his own clothes for the first time in forever. Boys weren't supposed to wear makeup, or do their hair, or like the color of Nissa's obnoxious pink pearl fingernail polish, but Joey wasn't supposed to be anything other than what he wanted that night. He'd never felt so alive, so free and full of everything.

Mikey and Davis then helped Joey come up with a suitable music taste. After some experimentation and searching, Joey realized that he loved the sound of the bass guitar. So far he'd fallen in love with The Wombats, Madeon, and, surprisingly, Rob Zombie. The music flooded his system and suddenly, Joey wasn't thinking about being a superhero. Instead of thinking about everything he could be doing - instead of thinking about the fact that he wasn't doing enough - he was thinking about how much fun tomorrow morning would be with his friends. In place of Deathstroke and criminals and his mother, Joey was now heatedly debating with Mikey who the true king of Halloween was - Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie.

Joey realized that night before he fell asleep among laughter and bundled in a sleeping bag that running off on his own and trusting a green haired street rat was probably the best decision he'd made in a very long time.

[I would just like to say that I didn't plan for a romance to happen here, it just kinda did as I was writing this. Sorry. Read and Review please!]


	4. Friends

[I do not own Teen Titans.]

Jericho didn't wake up until around three in the afternoon - an _extremely_ rare occasion for him. He got up and yawned, stretching and cracking his back for a moment before he heard groggy mumbling from below him and Ray got up with him.

Weird. Jericho didn't remember falling asleep next to Ray last night. He also didn't remember wearing Ray's shirt.

Jericho turned around and saw the three teens covering the mouths and finally giving up, laughing their butts off. Ray was completely pale white, mortified of what was insinuated by the teens.

"Don't- don't f-freak out Ray! It's a prank, turns out Joey here doesn't have a sense of humor _or_ humiliation." Nissa said in between fits of laughter.

"That is not funny! How did you even manage to move me without waking me up? Or get Joey in my shirt?" Ray questioned, confused by everything and too tired to deal with his friends' nonsense this early in the morning.

'I don't understand, is this supposed to mean something?' Joey signed to Ray, who was still extremely close to Joey.

"NO ONE EXPLAIN IT TO HIM!" Ray boomed once he saw Mikey and Davis already grinning impishly and ready to spoil the alienated innocence of Jericho.

It wasn't long before Jericho was dressed again, standing outside of The Hollow Sound Box and getting ready to say goodbye to Ray.

"Hey, let me walk you home? No offense, but I still don't trust you to just not fall into the arms of a less morally good alley man." Ray joked, jabbing Jericho in the side.

Jericho suddenly grew somber and shook his head, looking everywhere except Ray's face.

"...No?" Ray said brokenly, despite his effort to sound nonchalant.

'I'm a Teen Titan. I'm a superhero.' He signed.

Jericho braced himself. He bit his lips and scrunched his eyes shut, forcing his tears back and making his breath steady itself as he tried to admit to Ray that he wasn't a civilian. He was a freak, a superhero. Ray was going to find out and then he'd yell at Jericho for lying to him. He'd never want to see Jericho again because where there were superheroes there was always supervillains. He'd get angry and he'd say that Jericho was just like every other liar in the city and-

"I know."

Jericho reared back for a moment staring with eyes like saucers at Ray.

"I know." He repeated with an amused chuckle.

"Your friends went nuts this morning when it was noon and you still weren't back, so they sent out a search team and the whole city knows your face and name now. Besides," Ray said.

"I've never had a best friend who's a superhero. It's pretty cool I think." Ray commented, shoving Joey in the shoulder playfully. Joey didn't let up.

'No, you can't be around me. We can't be friends. If any villains find out we're friends they'll track you down and-'

"And you'll save me. Superman style." Ray interrupted, taking Joey's smaller hands in his and cutting him off from signing.

"From what I remember I was the one saving you yesterday. I'll be fine." Ray assured.

Ray and Jericho continued looking out over the sea to Titans Tower, both knowing what they should be thinking about, but thinking about something else entirely anyway.

"I think it's pretty cool that I have my very own Superman on speed dial now." Ray commented with a smile.

'So if I'm Superman, does that make you Lois Lane?' Jericho signed with an impish smirk.

"Well...yeah, I guess." Ray said, only just then noticing the way Jericho was balling his fists up in the corners of his tunic and wondering what was wrong.

"Hey, you ok-"

Raymond Tracey's mind shut down completely.

Jericho, in all of his crazy stupid superhero strength caused by Robin making him train so hard to be an honorary, scooped Ray up bridal style like a classic Superman and Lois Lane picture and planted his small lips firmly on Ray's, effectively startling him and shutting him up. It was quite a sight to see. Ray, who was probably three heads taller than Joey, with his lanky arms and legs hanging awkwardly from the fact that Joey was still very close to the ground anyway because of his height. Ray's black duster hung on the ground and his braid fell in a pool next to it, but he couldn't care any less.

When Jericho finally pulled away, Ray and he just stood and stared at each other for a while, both red as the sunset the night before and wondering how on earth their lives had changed so much in just twenty four hours.

Jericho finally put Ray back down on his two feet, refusing to look Ray in the eye again until he broke the ice. Jericho busied himself with twirling and playing with Ray's ugly green braid that was now hung in front of his chest like a cat toy.

Ray suddenly burst into obnoxious snorts and giggles, wrapping his lanky arms around Jericho's neck tight and nearly falling into him, kissing Jericho back with all the excitement he could. Jericho wrapped his arms around Ray's lanky waist, holding him close and tight and never wanting to let go of the warmth that came with Ray's body. When he pulled away Jericho was silently giggling with him, Ray busying himself with covering both of Jericho's cheeks in thankful, chaste kisses like a grade schooler.

When the two finally calmed down, Joey eskimo kissed Ray sweetly, looking into Ray's eyes with a promise to come see him every single day that he could, and that a follow up date was definitely in order.

"You guys are gay!" Nissa yelled teasingly from across the street.

* * *

When Joey finally made it back to Titans Tower, the Titans were all completely bewildered. Joey was covered in glitter and makeup, small, barely seeable black-ish white lipstick stains, and he smelled like lavender and the back of a fast food restaurant. The blonde boy said absolutely nothing. He didn't explain where he was or what he'd done, and he just walked into his room. The next day, life carried on and Jericho acted as if he'd never even left. Titans North found out about Ray when Jericho left again the next day of course, but they were all alright with it.

Raven was a little on edge, but that was to be expected.

[I hope you enjoyed this. I didn't like the little epilogue bit all that much, but oh well. I finished this really really late so forgive me. Read and Review please!]


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